TIRUPATI: A sniffer dog squad helped the Red Sanders Anti-Smuggling Task Force (RSASTF) unearth logs of the precious wood in deep forest on Sunday night. Disclosing this to newsmen here on Monday, RSASTF SP P Ravi Shankar said the combing team found some footprints at Ravimakula Kunta in the forest area between Kalyani Dam and Srivari Mettu. On suspicion, the team took the sniffer dogs ‘Hunter’ and ‘Bittus’ to the spot.
The dogs trained in sniffing out red sanders, identified a spot where the combing team unearthed nine logs. Red sanders logs were also unearthed at two other spots identified by the sniffer dogs. Earlier, the sniffer dogs helped the task force unearth 21 red sanders logs during combing operations. The dog squad has proved to be useful to the RSASTF in unearthing red sanders dumps in the deep Seshachalam forest, the SP added. Deputy Range Officer PVN Rao, FBO Johnny Basha, RSI Vasu and dog squad trainer Jagadeesh were also present at the news conference.